Teachers Learning Quotes & Sayings

She hated everything. The library with its pile of books full of explanations about life; the school that had forced her to spend whole evenings learning algebra, even though she didn't know a single person, apart from teachers and mathematicians, who needed algebra in order to be happy. — Paulo Coelho

[T]he more critical lesson I learned that day is still one too many kids never figure out: don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing. — Sonia Sotomayor

We know that African American students tend to be relational learners. It's about the relationships between a teacher and student. Students respond well to teachers they know, believe in them, care about them, but also who teach in a matter that elicits a more active approach to learning, rather than just sitting and listening. The research on this is strong and has been available for a long time, but it is not widely practiced. That's a huge obstacle. — Pedro Noguera

We feel, perhaps unconsciously, that learning from Masters and submitting to their authority is somehow an indictment of our own natural ability, Even if we have teachers in our lives, we tend not to pay full attention to their advice, often preferring to do things our own way. In fact, we come to believe that being critical of Masters or teachers is somehow a sign of our intelligence, and that being a submissive pupil is a sign of weakness. — Robert Greene

Real education happens only by failing, changing, challenging, and adjusting. All of those gerunds apply to teachers as well as students. No person is an "educator," because education is not something one person does to another. Education is an imprecise process, a dance, and a collaborative experience. — Siva Vaidhyanathan

Collaboration allows teachers to capture each other's fund of collective intelligence. — Mike Schmoker

Third Wave technology will also change how we measure success in the classroom. What good is an annual standardized test, after all, once teachers and parents can get detailed reports with a wide range of metrics, comparing their students on a regular basis to others in their class or school or state? In this way, big data on individual students will do for education what standardized testing never quite could: bring quantitative precision to a qualitative learning process. — Steve Case

When I think back on my favorite teachers, I don't remember anymore much of what they taught me, but I sure remember being excited about learning it. What has stayed with me are not the facts they imparted, but the excitement about learning they inspired. — Thomas Friedman

Education is unfolding the wings of head and heart together. The job of a teacher is to push the students out of the nest to strengthen their wings. — Amit Ray

An eternal question about children is, how should we educate them? Politicians and educators consider more school days in a year, more science and math, the use of computers and other technology in the classroom, more exams and tests, more certification for teachers, and less money for art. All of these responses come from the place where we want to make the child into the best adult possible, not in the ancient Greek sense of virtuous and wise, but in the sense of one who is an efficient part of the machinery of society. But on all these counts, soul is neglected. — Thomas Moore

Our children are only as brilliant as we allow them to be. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

When I was young, I wanted to be a writer or painter. I was always writing stories, and I excelled at drawing. My teachers encouraged my art work. When I was 9 or 10, I began learning piano and started writing music. — Bat For Lashes

The pursuit of learning is not a piece of content that can be taught. It is a value that teachers model. Only teachers who are avid, internally motivated learners can truly teach their students the joy of learning. — Martin Haberman

My hope emerges from those places of struggle where I witness individuals positively transforming their lives and the world around them. Educating is a vocation rooted in hopefulness. As teachers we believe that learning is possible, that nothing can keep an open mind from seeking after knowledge and finding a way to know. — Bell Hooks

Great teachers create space for learning and invite people into that space. — Peter M. Senge

We honor ambition, we reward greed, we celebrate materialism, we worship acquisitiveness, we commercialize art, we cherish success and then we bark at the young about the gentle arts of the spirit. The kids know that if we really valued learning, we would pay our teachers what we pay our lawyers and stockbrokers. If we valued art, we would not measure it by its capacity to produce profits. If we regarded literature as important, we would remove it from the celebrity sweepstakes and spend a little money on our libraries. — Russell Baker

But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Instead of being the 'font of all knowledge,' teachers are required to be effective facilitators of student learning both within and outside the classroom at any time. — Susan Mann

Students never appreciate their teachers while they are learning. It is only later, when they know more of the world, that they understand how indebted they are to those who instructed them. Good teachers expect no praise or love from the young. They wait for it, and in time, it comes. — Darren Shan

By learning to yield to the loving authority ... of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life - his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers. — James Dobson

But I think parents aren't teachers anymore. Parents
or a whole lot of us, at least
lead by mouth instead of by example. It seems to me that if a child's hero is their mother or father
or even better, both of them in tandem
then the rough road of learning and experience is going to be smoothed some. And every little bit of smoothing helps, in this rough old world that wants children to be miniature adults, devoid of charm and magic and the beauty of innocence. — Robert McCammon

discover that the quality of our relationships with our teachers, families, friends, and communities is as important to learning as the curriculum, testing, and technologies which usually occupy our attention. — Louis Cozolino

True teachers not only impart knowledge and method but awaken the love of learning by their own reflected love. — Robert Grudin

The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see. — Alexandra K.Trenfor

Failure is a great teacher; but never insist on hiring one for yourself. Learn vicariously from others' teachers. — Ashok Kallarakkal

As a teacher and parent, I've had a very personal interest in seeking new ways of teaching. Like most other teachers and parents, I've been well aware painfully so, at times that the whole teaching/learning process is extraordinarily imprecise, most of the time a hit-and-miss operation. Students may not learn what we think we are teaching them and what they learn may not be what we intended to teach them at all. — Betty Edwards

No one answered. You could hear the light buzzing over us. I love that sound. It means school isn't working, that the teachers are losing the battle. — Adam Rapp

A shower of rain rejuvenates nature; similarly a Good Teacher rejuvenates learners with the beauty of knowledge. A shower of rain in the desert rejuvenates the most barren wasteland and helps hibernating flowers to bloom with an explosion of colour and eagerness; similarly a Great Teacher rejuvenates hibernating learners to bloom with an explosion of love for learning, curiosity and eagerness to explore the world without fear and inhibitions. — Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere - mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, or pleasure in creating, or sense of self ... Because adults take the schools so much for granted, they fail to appreciate what grim, joyless places most American schools are [they are much the same in most countries], how oppressive and petty are the rules by which they are governed, how intellectually sterile and esthetically barren the atmosphere, what an appalling lack of civility obtains on the part of teachers and principals, what contempt they unconsciously display for students as students. — John Holt

Who better to teach than the most capable among us? And I'm not just talking about seminars or formal settings. Our actions and behaviors, for better or worse, teach those who admire and look up to us how to govern their own lives. Are we thoughtful about how people learn and grow? As leaders, we should think of ourselves as teachers and try to create companies in which teaching is seen as a valued way to contribute to the success of the whole. Do we think of most activities as teaching opportunities and experiences as ways of learning? One of the most crucial responsibilities of leadership is creating a culture that rewards those who lift not just our stock prices but our aspirations as well. — Ed Catmull

An exceedingly confident student would in theory make a terrible student. Why would he take school seriously when he feels that he can outwit his teachers? — Criss Jami

When I was coaching I always considered myself a teacher. Teachers tend to follow the laws of learning better than coaches who do not have any teaching background. A coach is nothing more than a teacher. I used to encourage anyone who wanted to coach to get a degree in teaching so they could apply those principles to athletics. — John Wooden

It must be confessed that the English gentleman, especially if he be devoted to field and other sports, is apt to attribute slight importance to mental felicity or learning. I happen to enjoy the system, having suffered much on the continent from people who pretend to be intellectuals when they are not. Yet it is undeniable that a type of civility that excludes or misprises the humanities compares ill with the ideal of the perfectly endowed and developed human being which the Greeks and the best teachers of the Renaissance held as examples for emulation. — Harold Nicolson

Because, ten-year-olds of the world, you shouldn't believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won't make a bit of difference until after puberty. It's Newton's lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid. Won't it, Sebastian? Oh, yes, it will, my little Mandarin Chinese-learning, Poe-reciting, high-top-wearing friend. God bless you, wherever you are. — Sloane Crosley

In the absence of either a widely accepted theory of language learning or a solid empirical base for classroom practice, teachers and learners have always been, and will always be, vulnerable to drastic pendulum swings of fashion, the coming and going of various unconventional and unlamented "Wonder Methods" being an obvious recent example. The sad truth is that after at least 2,000 years, most language teaching takes place on a wing and a prayer - sometimes successfully, but often a relative failure. — Michael H. Long

I went to an inner-city school in Buffalo. We had no money. But our teachers believed in hands-on active learning - there was a mandatory science fair, which was critical. — Megan Smith

Learning, while at school, that the charge for the education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that, when they became teachers, women received only half as much as men for their services, the injustice of this distinction was so apparent. — Lucretia Mott

Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event. — Heidi Hayes Jacobs

When teachers are forced to teach to the test, students get bored and genuine education ceases, no matter what the test scores may say ... The examination as a test of the past is of no value for increased learning ability. Like all external motivators, it can produce a short term effect, but examinations for the purpose of grading the past do not hook a student on learning for life. — Myron Tribus

Teacher training institutes should impact training of our nation's teachers in a manner that encourages them to support the holistic development of the child and to continuously refine their own skills to create the best possible learning environments for our children. — Shaheen Mistri

I kept asking myself: What do these people with strong relationships, parents with deep connections to their children, teachers nurturing creativity and learning, clergy walking with people through faith, and trusted leaders have in common? The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they're not afraid to lean in to discomfort. — Brene Brown

The great teachers believe in the growth of the intellect and talent, and they are fascinated with the process of learning. — Carol S. Dweck

We need standards with flexibility, not standardization with force if we are to get the best from our teachers. — Andy Hargreaves

The norms of femininity suppress the body potential of women. We grow up learning that the feminine body is soft, not muscular, passive, incapable, vulnerable. Our parents, teachers and friends suppress our natural urges to run, jump, risk, by cries that we should not act so boldly and move so daringly. . . . Developing a sense of our bodies as beautiful objects to be gazed at and decorated requires suppressing a sense of our bodies as strong, active subjects moving out to meet the world's risk and confront the resistances of matter and motion. — Iris Young

I would argue that education, actual learning - it is hard work. It's very personal. Your parents don't teach you anything. Your teachers don't teach you anything. The government doesn't teach you anything. You read it. You don't understand it; you read it again. You break a pencil and read it again. — Dean Kamen

Good teachers never say anything. What they do is create the conditions under which learning takes place. — S.I. Hayakawa

Public libraries are our great teachers and storytellers, and are a vital adjunct to our schools. In this day of standardized and homogenized education, a library offers individual and personalized learning opportunities second to none. — Julie Andrews

We think we learn from teachers, and we sometimes do. But the teachers are not always to be found in school or in great laboratories. Sometimes what we learn depends upon our own powers of insight. — Loren Eiseley

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those year in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked at us. — Ayn Rand

The most important knowledge teachers need to do good work is a knowledge of how students are experiencing learning and perceiving their teacher's actions. — Stephen Brookfield

Without optimism & self-belief among teachers, classrooms become wastelands of boredom & routine and schools deserts of lost opportunity. — Andy Hargreaves

Too often we see that teachers and educational administrators feel threatened by self-organized learning. They, therefore, think it is not learning at all. — Sugata Mitra

I received comments on how extraordinary it was that I could keep up speaking for exactly 45 minutes. Indeed, in an age of soundbites lasting some seconds and of quick quotes in the news, all those minutes do seem like an eternity, easy to get lost in. Yet, wait a moment. Television is not the only place where speeches are given. Some hundred thousand teachers teach every day. They all speak 45 minutes, more times a day. They have been doing this for years. Every teacher knows exactly when the time will be over and that by then his speech will need to come to a natural end. It is this tension that determines the success of a lesson. It is a sign of the times that we forget these daily achievements in education. A million students daily attend several 'live' lectures and this in secondary education alone. These are high ratings! — Robbert Dijkgraaf

If any lesson may be learned from the academic breakthroughs achieved by Pineapple and Jeremy, it is not that we should celebrate exceptionality of opportunity but that the public schools themselves in neighborhoods of widespread destitution ought to have the rich resources, small classes, and well-prepared and well-rewarded teachers that would enable us to give to every child the feast of learning that is now available to children of the poor only on the basis of a careful selectivity or by catching the attention of empathetic people like the pastor of a church or another grown-up whom they meet by chance. Charity and chance and narrow selectivity are not the way to educate children of a genuine democracy. — Jonathan Kozol

Most Americans - professing Christians - for a fairly long time thought that slavery was simply "where people are these days." Is it really loving to set aside the truth about sin and judgment and even to downplay the person and work of Christ as its answer simply because these are not the questions that are being asked by unbelievers? Imagine our elementary school teachers deciding that they will no longer teach the alphabet because the children aren't interested in learning it. — Michael S. Horton

They inspire you, they entertain you, and you end up learning a ton even when you don't know it — Nicholas Sparks

Students become good learners when they are in the classes of teachers who are good learners. — Andy Hargreaves

Education leaders must have the will at times to release leadership to the teachers the parents and the students. — Andy Hargreaves

But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith,and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary was not a poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. — George MacDonald

The teachers who get "burned out" are not the ones who are constantly learning, which can be exhilarating, but those who feel they must stay in control and ahead of the students at all times. — Frank Smith

Effective Peer Coaches emphasize inquiry over advocacy. Too much advocacy can produce learned helplessness. Inquiry builds capacity to improve teaching and learning by helping teachers to be more effective at designing and implementing learning activities that meet the needs of their students. — Lester Joseph Foltos

It's helpful to know that Eden drew his inspiration from a classic study led by the Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal, who teamed up with Lenore Jacobson, the principal of an elementary school in San Francisco. In eighteen different classrooms, students from kindergarten through fifth grade took a Harvard cognitive ability test. The test objectively measured students' verbal and reasoning skills, which are known to be critical to learning and problem solving. Rosenthal and Jacobson shared the test results with the teachers: approximately 20 percent of the students had shown the potential for intellectual blooming, or spurting. Although they might not look different today, their test results suggested that these bloomers would show "unusual intellectual gains" over the course of the school year. — Adam M. Grant

Very often it has come to my mind what men of learning there were formerly throughout England..and how nowadays...we would have to seek them outside...Thanks be to God Almighty that we now have any supply of teachers at all!...As often as you can, free yourself from worldly affairs so that you may apply that wisdom which God gave you wherever you can. Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves didn't cherish learning nor transmit it to other men. — King Alfred The Great

How you got your college education mattered most." And two experiences stood out from the poll of more than one million American workers, students, educators, and employers: Successful students had one or more teachers who were mentors and took a real interest in their aspirations, and they had an internship related to what they were learning in school. The most engaged employees, said Busteed, consistently attributed their success in the workplace to having had a professor or professors "who cared about them as a person," or having had "a mentor who encouraged their goals and dreams," or having had "an internship where they applied what they were learning." Those workers, he found, "were twice as likely to be engaged with their work and thriving in their overall well-being." There's a message in that bottle. — Thomas L. Friedman

the quality of classroom practice that a child encounters has unmatched potential with respect to influencing student learning and achievement. What teachers are doing in classes with students on a daily basis has the greatest potential to influence the academic outcome for students, — Steven Katz

Schools are even less efficient in the arrangement of the circumstances which encourage the open-ended, exploratory use of acquired skills, for which I will reserve the term "liberal education." The main reason for this is that school is obligatory and becomes schooling for schooling's sake: an enforced stay in the company of teachers, which pays off in the doubtful privilege of more such company. Just as skill instruction must be freed from curricular restraints, so must liberal education be dissociated from obligatory attendance. Both skill-learning
and education for inventive and creative behavior can be aided by institutional arrangement, but they are of a different, frequently opposed nature. — Ivan Illich

My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me, an approach to learning which was later reinforced by my experiences at Amherst. — Joseph Stiglitz

Schools in which students and teachers relate as partners-where Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication is part of every interaction are communities of learning, rather than top-down, impersonal factories. Young people begin to see school as a safe and exciting place of exploration where they can share feelings and ideas, and where each child is recognized, valued and nurtured. — Riane Eisler

There are two types of teachers. The ones who teach you to use the text to find answers, and the ones who teach you to use the text to find another whole world of answers. — Anonymous

optimal literacy teaching and learning can only be achieved when skillful, knowledgeable, and dedicated teachers are given the freedom and latitude to use their professional judgment to make instructional decisions that enable students to achieve their full literacy potential. — Linda B. Gambrell

I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?' — Tom Hiddleston

When teachers stop learning, so do students. — Jim Knight

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers
or should I say, nurses?
will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us. — C.S. Lewis

In large part, we are teachers precisely because we remember what it was like to be a student. Someone inspired us. Someone influenced us. Or someone hurt us. And we've channeled that joy (or pain) into our own unique philosophies on life and learning and we're always looking for an opportunity to share them - with each other, our students, parents, or in our communities. — Tucker Elliot

To benefit from what the best teachers do, however, we must embrace a different model, one in which teaching occurs only when learning takes place. Most fundamentally, teaching in this conception is creating those conditions in which most
if not all
of our students will realize their potential to learn. That sounds like hard work, and it is a little scary because we don't have complete control over who we are, but it is highly rewarding and obtainable. — Ken Bain

You cannot switch teachers on and off as if they were PowerPoint presentations. — Andy Hargreaves

Learning to drive in Canberra is pretty easy and I had great teachers in my parents. — Melissa Breen

Active learning is always involved with interaction between teachers and students and Socratic methods and that's gonna continue. — Joseph Stiglitz

This is a very challenging moment for educators. Our children are headed for a much more networked existence, one that allows for learning to occur 24, 7, 365, one that renders physical space much less important for learning, one that will challenge the relevance of classrooms as currently envisioned, and one that challenges our roles as teachers and adult learners. — Will Richardson

The best schools tend to have the best teachers, not to mention parents who supervise homework, so there is less need for self-organised learning. But where a child comes from a less supportive home environment, where there are family tensions perhaps, their schoolwork can suffer. They need to be taught to think and study for themselves. — Sugata Mitra

For all the best teachers pride themselves on having a large number of pupils and think themselves worthy of a bigger audience. — Quintilian

I love to thik of my little children whom God has called to himself as away at school-at the best school in the universe, under the best teachers, learning the best things, in the best possible manner. O death! We thank thee for the light that thou wilt shed upon our ignorance. — Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions — Diane Ravitch

We are always learning; we just have different teachers. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

A Teacher who has courage to laugh at herself or himself; laugh with students, and laugh off difficulties is the harbinger of positive trails and cheerful learning outcomes. — Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim him and distort him! — Charles Dickens

Differentiated Instruction is a teaching philosophy based on the premise that teachers should adapt instruction to student differences. Rather than marching students through the curriculum lockstep, teachers should modify their instruction to meet students' varying readiness levels, learning preferences, and interests. Therefore, the teacher proactively plans a variety of ways to 'get it' and express learning. — Carol Ann Tomlinson

I didn't learn to read until I was almost 14 years old. Reading out loud for me was a nightmare because I would mispronounce words or reconstruct things that weren't even there. That's when one of my teachers discovered I had a learning disability called dyslexia. Once I got help, I read very well! — Patricia Polacco

Colleges and departments of education have developed in response to the need for preparing the tens of thousands of teachers required to staff our immense public school system. That they have a most important function to discharge is plain for all to see. But instead of seeing that their products are equipped with sound learning in the various arts and sciences, they have ignored this and have concentrated almost exclusively upon methods of education. They have erected pseudo-science called "Education," most of whose courses are made up of commonplaces expressed in pretentious jargon. — Richard Weaver

Bruner discusses the need for teachers to understand that children should want to study for study's own sake, for learnings's sake, not for the sake of good grades or examination success. The curriculum should, in other words, be interesting. (Yes, it sounds too obvious even to say, but sometimes the emphasis on content has trumped all other considerations, including that of making learning interesting.) — Gary Thomas

We must learn to do economic work from all who know how, no matter who they are. We must esteem them as teachers, learning from them respectfully and conscientiously. We must not pretend to know when we do not know. — Mao Zedong

When I think back on the twenty years I spent in school, what sticks with me isn't any particular subject, learning tool, or classroom. It is the teachers who brought my education to life and drove my interest forward, so that my passion for learning continued, despite the long days, the hard chairs, the difficult problems. These women and men were giants. They were underpaid, and they put up with all sorts of crap, but they made me the person I am today vastly more than the facts they taught. That relationship is what digital education technology cannot ever replicate or replace, and why a great teacher will always provide a more innovative model for the future of education than the most sophisticated device, software, or platform. — David Sax

Teachers should not fear going off plan if a better learning opportunity presents itself. Plans are plans, but children are living, breathing, creative people, who deserve to have their questions answered and original ideas explored. — Adele Devine

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their
own. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Rather than always impose your will,
allow men to learn from their mistakes.
Great failures make great teachers;
success enables one to forget some things
a failure cannot afford to. — Matshona Dhliwayo

The overwhelming number of teachers ... are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do. — Alfie Kohn

Temperaments shapes the way we experience the world. Our most important endeavour as teachers must be guiding student's education and helping them cope with challenges, taking risks, learning from failures and inspiring their growth. We need to motivate them to fulfill their potential, to push themselves out of their comfort zones and develop new skills by praising their focus, perseverance and improvement. — Andrea Brajnovic

Good teachers aren't simply born, they perfect their craft over time. Teachers need a chance to practice and improve, especially now as the American education system lags behind international standards. If education in the United States is to raise its standards, we need to nurture our teachers through a combination of accountability and development methods. Actionable advice: Don't discipline children too harshly. It's certainly tempting to punish or suspend children that behave badly. That might fix the problem in the short term, but it actually inhibits a child's overall learning. It's much more effective to solve conflicts through social problem solving. When children can engage with a problem in a safe environment, their behavior is more likely to change for the good. — Anonymous

Public education for some time has been heavily focused on what curricula we believe will be helpful to students. Life-Enriching Education is based on the premise that the relationship between teachers and students, the relationships of students with one another, and the relationships of students to what they are learning are equally important in preparing students for the future. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

No one likes to feel used. When the perceived focus becomes the content over the person, people feel used. When teachers are valued only for the test scores of their students, they feel used. When administrators are "successful" only when they achieve "highly effective school" status, they feel used. Eventually, "used" people lose joy in learning and teaching. Curriculum does not teach; teachers do. Standards don't encourage; administrators do. Peaceable schools value personnel and students for who they are as worthy human beings. ... If your mission statement says you care, then specific practices of care should be habits within your school. — Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz